Well I bit the bullet and bought a Yaesu VX8gr been wanting to get into APRS and been wanting to do some FM bird stuff as well. I've always had good luck with Yaesu stuff. I'm excited and wanted to share with you all!
I was thinking of getting that Arrow Antenna for bird work, and setting up my FT817. Let me know how you do...if you can hit the FM sats, maybe I can do the SSB sats from the condo. It's my last hope and long distance amateur radio from the condo complex!
A while ago I attempted AO51 with my FT60 that was a pain because I had to keep switching bands being that it is only a single display radio. There is a Sat Com net on Thursday nights on the Beacon repeater.